Karl Marx had it right. At some point, capitalism can destroy itself.
You cannot keep on shifting income from labor to capital without having
an excess capacity and a lack of aggregate demand. That's what has
happened. We thought that markets worked. They're not working. The
individual can be rational. The firm, to survive and thrive, can push
labor costs more and more down, but labor costs are someone else's
income and consumption. That's why it's a self-destructive process.

For several hours on August 12, the Journal website ran the video of the interview as a top story, under the headline, "Roubini: Marx was Right".

July 21, 2011 -- Wearemany.org -- Omar Barghouti is an independent Palestinian commentator and human
rights activist. He is a founding member of the Palestinian Campaign for
the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against
Israel. The talk (above) was presented on July 1, 2011, at the United States International Socialist Organization's Socialism 2011 conference, which was held in Chicago, July 1-4, 2011.

Anyone familiar with the
socialist movement in the industrialized countries today must be struck
by the huge gap between what’s needed — mass socialist parties with deep
roots in the working class — and the reality — small groups of
socialists with little influence. The following exchange contains a
searching discussion of these issues between the noted Marxist scholar
Paul Le Blanc and John Riddell.

The exchange opens with an article by Le Blanc and continues with an
exchange between Riddell and Le Blanc. The discussion was first published in Socialist Voice
in June 2008 and later appeared on John Riddell's website (with more comments).

About the authors

Paul Le Blanc, a former member of the U.S. Socialist
Workers Party, has been a long-time anti-war, anti-racist, activist in
Pittsburgh. He teaches History at La Roche College. He is author of
Marx, Lenin, and the Revolutionary Experience (Routledge 2006).

It is always worth examining the question of Marxism and organisation because, if we would like to be organised Marxists who effectively struggle for socialism, we have a responsibility to know what we are about -- and such knowledge is deepened by ongoing examination. There are scholarly reasons for going over such ground, but for activists the primary purpose is to improve our ability to help change the world. There are three basic ideas to be elaborated on here: 1) there must be a coming together of socialism and the working class if either is to have a positive future; 2) those of us who think like that need to work together hard and effectively -- which means we need to be part of a serious organisation; and 3) socialist organisations must be a democratic/disciplined force in actual workers’ struggles -- that is the path to socialism. In what follows I will elaborate on this.

SOCIALISM 2011: REVOLUTION IN THE AIRRevolutionary politics, debate and entertainmentJULY 1-4 | CHICAGOhttp://www.socialismconference.org
Everywhere we look in the world there are revolutions and struggles that
are challenging dictatorship, economic inequality, and oppression.

From Cairo to Madison, these struggles show us that "another
world is possible." But they also raise questions about what ideas,
strategies, and tactics are necessary to carry the struggle forward.
Socialism 2011 will provide an opportunity for new and veteran activists
to discuss what these events mean for our world, and for our own
movements today.

Last year, more than 1,500 people turned out to Socialism 2010 in Oakland and Chicago.

Don’t miss the chance to meet with hundreds of others like you who want
to build an alternative to a system of greed, racism, war and
oppression.

April 4, 2011 -- Socialist Worker -- Anyone who studies the US black liberation movement and seeks to renew
its struggles will be saddened by the untimely passing of Manning
Marable, the Columbia University professor who combined wide-ranging
scholarship with an active commitment to social transformation.

Below are a number of statements and reports of solidarity actions around the world following the overthrow of the US-backed Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak. They include a statement from organisations attending the New Anti-Capitalist Party congress in France, solidarity from the World Social Forum in Dakar, Senegal, a statement by leaders of the Socialist Party USA and a report on trade union organised protests in South Korea. Check back for more.

* * *

Statement from
left organisations present at the New Anti-Capitalist Party congress

February 12,
2011 -- The overthrow of Ben Ali and Mubarak change the political situation not
only in the Maghreb but on the international scale.

February 12, 2011 -- Jadaliyya -- Since February 11, and actually earlier,
middle-class activists have been urging Egyptians to suspend the
protests and return to work, in the name of patriotism, singing some of
the most ridiculous lullabies about "let's build new Egypt". "Let's work
harder than even before", ... In case you didn't know, actually
Egyptians are among the hardest working people around the globe already.

February 4, 2011 -- Socialist Worker (USA) -- Anti-Mubarak demonstrators gathered in their hundreds
of thousands today, in Cairo's Tahrir Square, in Alexandria and in
cities and towns across the country for a new day of mass protest
against the regime.

Tonight’s State of the Union sent the message one final time that the Obama presidency was and is designed to protect the privileges accrued by the richest 5% in society. Obama lived up to the characterisation of him as a “hedge-fund Democrat”, a politician assigned the task of deflecting the real demands of the people for a society and economy based on solidarity, peace and justice.

January 2011 -- Against The Current -- The 2010 Dan La Botz Socialist for Senate campaign
in Ohio represents an important success in the recent context of
leftist third-party initiatives. Running the first Socialist Party
campaign for national office in Ohio since 1936, La Botz garnered 25,368
votes statewide, one of the more successful socialist electoral bids in
decades. This experience provides some important lessons for how the
left can engage the electoral arena in this period.

A talk presented by John Riddell to International Socialist Organization's (USA) Marxism 2010 conference in Chicago. The talk was originally posted at Wearemany.org. John Riddell is co-editor of Socialist Voice (Canada) and editor of The Communist International in Lenin’s Time,
a six-volume anthology of documents, speeches, manifestos and
commentary.

Jason Netek
looks at the political situation in Venezuela -- and why international
solidarity is key to furthering the process of workers' power.

July 22, 2010 -- Socialist Worker (USA) -- The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is the focal
point of a political shift to the left that has affected most of the
Latin American continent for just over a decade. For years now, we have
heard denunciations of the nation and its president, Hugo Chávez, from
TV personalities like Glenn Beck and Pat Robertson to establishment
figures like George W. Bush and Barack Obama, all of whom liken the
nation to a military dictatorship.

It's no good pointing out to these types that the US actually has
propped up real military dictators in efforts to stave off leftist
movements all across the continent. They are fully aware. They are
hypocrites.

Berkeley, California -- November 20, 2009 -- Students occupied Wheeler Hall on the University of California campus in Berkeley, protesting against a decision by university regents to raise tuition fees by 32%, bringing them to US$10,302 per year for undergraduates.

At the beginning of the occupation the students made several demands, including the reinstatement of 38 laid-off custodial workers, and amnesty for protesting students.

Karl Marx and his comrades deemed their own approach “scientific”, as compared to “utopian” intellectual efforts on behalf of socialism, because they believed that practical efforts to challenge and ultimately replace capitalism with something better must be grounded in a serious study of economic, political, social, historical realities and dynamics.

More, they believed that lessons learned from practical organising and political experiences of the working class and popular social movements — sometimes glorious victories and often tragic defeats — must also guide practical efforts of the future. The combination of such study and experience has been called “Marxist theory”.

The massive crisis of capitalism has put the meaning of “socialism” back into public debate. Superficially equating state intervention in the economy with “socialism”, some are inclined to agree with Newsweek magazine that “we are all socialists now.”

November 15, 2009 -- For the past few weeks the international capitalist mass media has been awash with triumphalist hoopla about the so-called ``collapse of Communism'' as it celebrates the 20th anniversary of the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall. Below Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal posts a number of commenatries from the left that deal with facts and fictions of those dramatic events, and how the people most effected are faring today.

* * *

By Chris Slee

November
16, 2009 – Green Left Weekly -- The 20th
anniversary of the opening of the Berlin wall -- November 9 -- was the occasion
for self-congratulation by supporters of the capitalist system. They talked of the
fall of the wall as heralding a new era of freedom.

They
failed to note that other walls and fences have been built or strengthened
during the past 20 years.

October 2009 -- I have decided to join the International Socialist Organization (ISO) because I believe socialists can and must, at this moment, intensify the struggle to bring about positive social change. I have been active in this struggle for most of my life -- as a member of the "new left" in the 1960s and early '70s (first in Students for a Democratic Society and briefly in the New American Movement), then in the Trotskyist movement (the Socialist Workers Party for ten years, briefly in Socialist Action, the Fourth Internationalist Tendency for another eight years). I have always considered "Trotskyism" as the same as revolutionary socialism, associated with some of the most useful ideas and most inspiring traditions that ever existed -- something I will come back to shortly.

Since 1992 I have been a member of Solidarity, which over the years has attracted a number of fine people who have done excellent work, although it has never proved able to sustain a membership of more than 300. I feel I have done all that I can to help build Solidarity. At this point I believe I may have more to contribute to building the International Socialist Organization (ISO) and am hopeful that the ISO can play a badly needed role in the intensification of the struggle to bring fundamental social change.